Just For An Instant
by Tk Tony
Summary: Everyone on the Grandline is connected. Some a little more closely than others. Sanji - Law: childhood friends of best...or worst kind.


**Title:** Just For An Instant  
**Rating:** PG-13 **  
Pairing:** Trafalgar Law + Sanji **  
Genre:** Drama / AU **  
Warnings:** Blood. Psychopath in training. OMG WHY. **  
Summary:** Everyone on the Grandline is connected. Some a little more closely than others. **  
Disclaimer:** Not mine. I don't even want it. Oda-sensei is going to have to hide from fans forEVER after 550.  
**Notes:** Written for sybile LJ Based completely off of "They're both from North Blue." AU.

**Just For An Instant**

The more people you met on the Grandline, the more connections between them you discovered. Brook was one good example of this. He lost his shadow to Moria, whom they would have run into in any case and who was also Laboon's lost crew-mate. That, however, did not make Sanji any less surprised to run into-

"Law~! You're here, too?"

The blank look on the other's face didn't deter Sanji in the slightest. Knocking several large bubbles out of his way, Sanji all-but pranced (okay, he _did_ prance) over to his long lost friend. First a mermaid and now Law? The Shabondy Archipelago was bringing all of his dreams to life.

For his part, Law had no idea who the approaching blond was. Could be a fan, he mused, this is where all of the paths on the Grandline meet. This was in almost direct counterpoint to Sanji's dazed look hiding a stream of their "happiest" memories together.

* * *

Seated on top of a tall rock in a field of bare trees and half-melted snow, six year-old Law finished tying up the bandage on a tiny polar bear cub. Despite being nearly noon, the field was dim and full of shadows caused by ever-present, heavy cloud cover. He was just planning on how best to steal or swindle a quick meal when the little blond kid showed up again, eyes shining and eyebrow's curling.

"Look, Law, look! I made gourmet shepherd's pie! Just for you!" Setting two heavy plates on the rock next to Law, Sanji scrambled up the side, only falling back into the slush once, a personal record.

Taking the pie who's crust wasn't completely burned and lopsided, Law ate slowly, savoring what might be the biggest meal he had all week (though this was less likely now that the snow was melted enough that Sanji could make it to his field). Finished, he pulled out his pocket knife and eyed the other boy until Sanji stuffed the last few crumbs into his mouth. A slow smirk (of a demon the villagers liked to say) and then he said, "Hey, Sanji... You wanna play doctor?"

* * *

The blond stopped once he was within arm's length and then started prattling on about something Law immediately shoved out of his hearing as boring and therefore unimportant. Law rather liked his fans, so he scanned the blond for anything he could take as a trophy without killing the guy. The curlicue eyebrow looked promising, but before he could settle on the decision, a soft breeze pushed the blond fringe over enough that Law could see the beginnings of a scar on the left side his nose next to his eye-

"Oh, _Sanji_." Full smile in place, Law instantly tuned back into the sound of his old friend's voice. "So you made it to the Grandline, too? Found All Blue yet?"

Despite the fact that Sanji had undoubtedly already answered both questions when Law wasn't listening, he answered with inspired gusto. "Not yet, but I know it's out there! I've seen it, thanks to you!" Breaking from his enthusiasm, Sanji looked and gestured over his shoulder to a group of people looking on with dumbstruck expressions. "I'm a cook with that bunch of uncultured idiots. Can barely breath through the stupid." Like a switch, "Expect of course for the beautiful and elegant Nami-san and Robin-chan~!"

Meanwhile, Nami rubbed her eyes several times trying to comprehend just what she was seeing. "That's...a man, right?"

"Looks like that shit cook's finally lost it. I need more beer for this." Zoro started walking off towards where he thought he could find some beer (though was actually the way back to the ship), but Usopp's numb hand subconsciously grabbed the edge of his shirt to keep him from wandering.

"That guy must have a mystery gender!"

Zoro wasn't sure how. And he certainly didn't like it, but he and the rest of the Strawhat crew were seated in the galley of the Heart Pirates' ship while Sanji cooked Law the meal of his life with running commentary and a deluge of sparkles that were only minimally better than the hearts that showered the ship when his attention was focused on Nami, Robin or anything else with tits. And speaking of tits, Robin had a pretty good idea of what was wrong with the shitty love cook. Not that her explanation made any sense to Zoro.

She'd explained to Chopper, Franky, Brook and Nami (acknowledging everyone else as a lost cause) that Cook-san must have met Law before going through puberty and that the sparkling, over the top attention was just his normal personality when around people he liked. The only thing Zoro took away from that was that he was damn glad he'd only met the moron _after_ his balls dropped.

Now, seated awkwardly on a rival ship, Zoro glared at the cause of this stupidity and his overly amused expression. Yeah, he was a stupid shitty cook, but he was _their_ stupid shitty cook and Zoro would be damned if he let some huge sword guy (he could take him) steal their cook.

* * *

When Sanji returns to his one-and-a-half story, red-tiled roof house built into the back of the only restaurant for ten leagues in any direction to help his dad make spiced pork chops and peaches (plums? oranges? Oh, right, apples!) his mother catches him first, by the bloody, but perfectly stitched hands. With big eyes, he listens to his mother detail (rant) about just how important a cook's hands are, but when he solemnly nods and agrees to never put his hands at risk again, he carefully avoids agreeing to stop playing with Law or anything equally ridiculous because, while Mother knew everything, she didn't know _Law_. And Law said he thought he knew how Sanji could see All Blue, and wasn't that what she and Father always wanted?

Fish from every ocean swimming in his vision, Sanji doesn't even hear his mother rant and rave to his father about how they needed to move away from this place of sin and into the safer countries of East Blue before something serious happened to Sanji. (Because that little ruffian had the look of someone who would cut off your foot just to see if the toes would wiggle once a wrist replaced the ankle.)

* * *

The only person legitimately surprised by Law's hand extended towards Sanji was, well, Sanji. (This was probably in part due to the fact that Luffy and Usopp were too busy talking to the "Mystery Bear" that could speak and knew martial arts.) Leaving the Strawhats wasn't even the bastard son of an option, so despite how much Law meant... One by one, the sparkles brightly twinkling around Sanji after Law's compliments on the meal burned out, cracked and fell into tiny pieces on the galley floor. Law, Franky and Robin pretended not to notice a slightly mollified Zoro re-sheath his precious swords when Law dropped his hand.

With some hesitance, and a subconscious swipe over the fringe on the left side of his face, Sanji responded. "Law, my good friend, best friend! Comrade! Brother in everything but-" At said brother's wave, he skipped ahead in his speech. "I could never let myself hold you back with my dreams of All Blue..! You've done more than enough for me on that front. I'll find it on my own and then bring all of the delicacies to you, so continue on with your own dream!"

Before the tension had a chance to truly build around Sanji's statement and before anyone but Robin could wonder just what Sanji meant by that, Luffy dashed back to the center of room, apparently fresh from an explanation of Bebo's transplanted human voice-box at the power of Law's Devil Fruit. It took several leaps of Strawhat Logic to see how this meant Luffy needed to take Law's pants off, but his cry of, "So that's why you're a mystery gender!" clued in the less talented.

* * *

In the middle of a caravan crossing over the Redline from North Blue to East Blue, a frail blonde woman and her curly eyebrowed husband wept over their son's weak body in the rickety wagon that was all they could afford to spare, knowing they'd need the rest of their meager savings for medical bills if they ever wanted their child to be the same again. There was no hope for the left eye, they knew when they saw the cornea cut clean open and the pupil blown up so wide as to show the eye as completely black. But there had to be something, someone could do about the gruesome slashes that radiated from the eye in a pattern to match the one carefully stitched in animal tendon onto the chest of that Trafalgar boy's coat.

When the boy woke, looking paler than the bandages around his face, he neither winced nor complained in pain. He even took his parents' tears to be a match to the joy springing from his one good eye. "I saw it! I saw All Blue! Just for an instant, but it was there! Law showed me..!"

* * *

There is fanart available for this story by -syb on devianart. Link in my profile


End file.
